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Pols sidestep debate over Armenian genocide

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By regional standards, the Armenian genocide happened yesterday. Or, if you're the government of Turkey or the United States, there was no genocide.

Now Congress is weighing in, and the diplomatic foray has gotten messy.

The Bush administration, like others before it, refuses to use the word "genocide." Beginning in 1915, more than 1.5 million Armenians died when the Ottoman government forced the relocation of the population. President Bush has a reason not to call it genocide: That would anger the Turkish government, an ally and a Muslim democracy which has threatened to revoke permission for the U.S. to use an important air base over the issue, among other repercussions.

Resolutions recognizing and condemning the genocide have been introduced in both the House and the Senate, and the administration is vigorously opposing them. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a joint letter that the resolution could "harm American troops in the field."

And Turkey's lobbying prowess has already forced four co-sponsors to back off the bill.

Nonetheless, backers of the nonbinding resolutions in Congress feel this could be the year it happens and have gained momentum from a Los Angeles Times editorial last weekend in support of the measure, which now has 190 co-sponsors in the House and 29 in the Senate version sponsored by Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.).

The International Association of Genocide Scholars, among numerous other reputable historical groups, has described the event as genocide, explaining in a 2005 letter to the Turkish government that, beginning in April 1915, "…under cover of World War I, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide of its Armenian citizens -- an unarmed Christian minority population. More than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture and forced death marches…"

The Turkish government, which replaced the Ottomans, disputes the account and is fighting to prevent debate on the resolution. A Turkish Embassy spokesman said that the Armenian deaths -- they place the toll at 200,000 -- occurred during an armed revolt by Armenian rebels who opposed being relocated by the Ottoman government.

"We don't believe the term 'genocide' has anything to do with what happened in 1915 in the Ottoman Empire. It's a very incriminating and serious claim," the spokesman said.

Turkey has long threatened repercussions in trade and diplomatic relations if the U.S. recognizes the genocide. "It's going to affect our cooperation," the embassy spokesman said. "We don't see what the advantages are for the United States in passing this. Only the enemies of the United States and Turkey would be happy."

The Turkish government is backing up its talk with serious lobbying power. The Livingston Group -- the powerful firm of former Louisiana Republican congressman Bob Livingston -- represents Turkey and is fighting the resolution. According to the watchdog group Public Citizen, Turkey paid the Livingston Group $9 million between 2000 and 2004, and Turkey recently hired DLA Piper, the firm of former House minority leader Dick Gephardt, to provide access to Democrats.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill feel the pressure. So far, four House members who initially co-sponsored the resolution, including Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), have withdrawn their support.

"I initially did it as a favor to Schiff," Scott said, referring to one of the bill's lead sponsors, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). "If I had known it would be this kind of a mess, I'd never have gotten into it. I wasn't there. I don't know what happened. Out of fairness, let them settle it."

Scott said he withdrew as a co-sponsor after meeting with a number of his Turkish-American constituents. (His district includes a sizable Turkish-American population.)

Rep. Dennis Moore (D-Kan.) also supported the resolution before he withdrew as a co-sponsor. His office said he had "no official comment" on the flip-flop.

Rep. Phil English (R-Pa.) also pulled his name, saying in a statement to The Politico, "…although I sympathize with the Armenian claims for justice, the timing of this resolution is unfortunate, given everything in the Middle East and our need to maintain a close engagement with our friends in Turkey. As we continue to work together to promote peace in the Middle East and Iraq, nothing should come between U.S. engagement with Turkey."

Republicans also see the resolution as an opportunity to paint Democrats as novices in international diplomacy. "It's another irresponsible foreign policy flap on the part of the majority on the heels of their trip to Syria," said Florida Rep. Adam Putnam, the third-ranking member in the Republican caucus.

The Bush administration "does not use the word 'genocide' to describe these events," the U.S. Embassy said in a March 13, 2007, statement. The administration, it clarified, "has never denied the mass murders and forced exile of up to 1.5 million Armenians" -- it just doesn't call it genocide.

"Unfortunately, the administration, rather than viewing it as a moral issue, puts it into U.S.-Turkish relations," said Aram Hambarian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America.

Schiff agrees, contending that the administration's opposition is "not a principled position to take." Refusing to acknowledge a 90-year-old genocide undercuts U.S. moral authority to end the genocide currently going on in Darfur, he added.

Hambarian said that Turkey's threats are bluffs, noting that it trades briskly with European nations that have condemned the genocide. He added that when the U.S. has previously bucked Turkey by mentioning the genocide, in several earlier House resolutions and a 1981 presidential proclamation by Ronald Reagan, the threats did not materialize.

"Every year the argument is made that this is not a good time," Schiff said. "It's been 90 years. If now is not the right time, when is?"

Readers' Comments (8)

an excellent book, well researched- could barely put it down for a moment.

i might agree with the administration on this one. may not be right time to hold turkey to account. i need a better feel on larger picture. is it to check turkey with reguards to current Iraqi situation, particularly kurdish north?

i do agree that turkey needs to be pinned for that holocaust, just as we here are made to remember the jew's.

bigger question is when is the US going to acknowledge its genocide on american natives? national apology for slavery?

It is not the first time this is coming up and every time the excuse is that now is not the right time. Many other countries have recognized the genocide including 28 US states. It is time for the US Federal government to do the same. Turkey is like a toothless dog, just a lot of noise. With their EU bid on the line, Turkey is counting on US support now more than ever. With fears that US is finding a new ally in Kurds, it will be unlikely that Turkey will be able to answer to a US Armenian genocide recognition. Now it's exactly the time this should be done. The recent killing of Kirk and other Christians is raising a different question; not if the Armenian Genocide ever happened, but will it ever stop? I think US recognition is a step in the right direction.

It is perhaps not very helpful to rely on books written by Armenian campaigners like Balakian for the proper historical background on this issue. Regarding that recommendation, here is a portion of a review by Andrew Mango, a prominent historian of the Ottoman empire and Modern Turkey, that appeared in the literary section of The Times:

>"The Burning Tigris >fits in with the campaign waged by Armenian nationalists to persuade Western parliaments to recognize the Armenian genocide. It is not a work of historical research, but an advocate’s impassioned plea, relying at times on discredited evidence, such as the forged telegrams attributed to the Ottoman interior minister, Talat Pasha, which were produced at the trial of his assassin in Berlin. Some of Balakian’s assertions would make any serious Ottoman historian’s hair stand on end. Like other similar books, it is replete with selective quotations from contemporary observers. Turkish historians have drawn from many of the same sources for material to rebut Armenian accusations. It would be better if, rather than ask parliaments to pass historical judgments, historians from all sides carne together to research the horrors of the war on the Ottomans’ eastern front."

A lot of the usual myths are again being thrown about in this discussion as "fact". I would like to address some of them.

French parliament calls it genocide - but the historian it consulted (and ignored) disputes this. Gilles Veinstein is an Ottoman specialist who is so highly regarded in his field that he was appointed Chairman of College de France. Another noted French historian, Nora, complains "The French parliament is being held captive by Armenian pressure groups."

Canada calls it genocide - but its leading historian in this respect disputes this. Gynne Dwyer has degrees in both Middle East and Military history and is one of the rare historians to have studied both the Ottoman and the Ottoman military archives.

If the US passes this bill, it will be just as political as the two examples above - it is no coindence that it comes from representatives from areas with large Armenian communities.

On a previous occassion a similiar bill was proposed, 69 American historians of the Middle East disputed its accuracy. This list included names like Roderic Davison and Bernard Lewis, who is described as "the most influential postwar historian of Islam and the Middle East" by the Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing. It is worth noting that he was convicted in a French court at the behest of Armenian campaigners, which gives some indication of their respect to the actual historical aspect of this. Nora called that action a "scandal".

The International Association of Genocide Scholars may sound like an authoratitive body, but they are not a historian group at all. To present them as the outright authority when they have none of the qualifications of the above named is misleading. One Oxford historian, Stone, described them as "some preposterous organization". They are led by Israel Charny, a Family Therapist.

The figure of 1.5 million killed is another myth. It comes from one German estimate that was so far higher than the concensus as to be an abberation.

The concensus figure for the total dead from almost all Allied intelligence sources and charity groups that were on the ground, as well as modern demographic study by American historian, Mccarthy, ranges between 600-800k.

It should be remember that this is the total dead - mostly from the same famine and epidemics that killed 25% of the rest of the country.

"Estimates of deaths given by the allies at the end of the war ranged from 600000 to 800000." - International Herald Tribune, December 2006.

The Armenian representative at the Paris conference offered a total dead figure of 600,000.

It should also be kept in mind that Armenian communications to the Allies at the time spoke of 150,000 Armenians fighting for the Russians, and "more than 40,000" fighting for the French.

There is this very silly idea that Germany needed inspiration from the Ottomans as if it did not have enough massacre experience of its own, or from its immediate European neighbours. The REAL first genocide of the 20th century (not counting ongoing ones) was the German massacre of the Herero people.

The Hitler quote regarding the Armenians is as spurious as the rest of the sloganeering. The document containing the account of this supposed speech was discarded as unauthentic during the Nuremburg trials. The document, evidence US28, was dismissed when two other accounts that were consistent with each other and did not contain any reference to the Armenians, US29 and US30, were authenticated. Despite this having happened 60 years ago, useful idiots in Congress and message boards still insist on repeating the relevant line.

To respond to a previous post about how this incident was too long ago for a Nuremburg type court - actually, there was a two and a half year war crimes investigation by the British when they were in occupation of Istanbul and had full control of the archives. They presented their findings in a telegram to the US:

"There are in hands of Majestys government at Malta a number of Turks arrested for alleged complicity in the Armenian massacres. There are considerable difficulty in establishing proofs of guilt. Please ascertain if the United States government is in possession of any evidence that would be of value for the purpose of prosecution."

"I have made several inquiries at the State Department, and today l am informed that while they are in possession of a large number of documents concerning the Armenian relocations, from the description, I am doubtful whether these documents are likely to prove useful as evidence in prosecuting Turks confined in Malta."

"The British Government had condemned the massacres at the time. But in the absence of unequivocal evidence that the Ottoman administration took a specific decision to eliminate the Armenians under their control at that time, British governments have not recognized those events as indications of genocide."

The US, despite having the same lack of evidence as the British (as indicated in their own communications above), looks set to lay down a version of history contrary to the archives of the State Department to appease a foreign lobby

The constant allusions to the Holocaust, rather than opening their archives and letting their evidence stand on its own two feet is rather ironic, given the Armenian alliance with Nazi Germany and their role in the Holocaust. Prior to their relocation, their militas were killing Jews in Anatolia as well as Ottoman Muslims.

Armenian populations who were not near the Anatolian uprising were exempted from the relocation order. Those who survived the relocation (it is not correct to call it deportation as they were moved to another Ottoman province, not expelled from the empire) were then left unharrassed.

If every parliament in the world recognises this as being any more significant than the thousands of other massacres that have occured throughout history, and during the same era, it will not erase the work of many respected historians who point out the absurdities in comparing this to the Jewish Holocaust - which was a geniune attempt at extermination and absent any territorial or dispute of any other nature.

In fact, Veinstein argues that if there are any real forgotten victims in this episode - it is those Ottoman muslims slaughtered by Armenians in the first instance.

i'm always open to both sides of any discussion. so you've pinned a book that dis-credits or counters balakian's? i'd be interested in reading it. balakian has ref'd his sources and for each you've pitched above his dwarfs. novel in idea. i merely commented on having read the book and enjoyed it- didn't call it gospel.

sorry man, i'm african-american. my ancestry knows what it's like to be robbed of your culture, heritage- given another to evolve into that somehow just doesn't quite fit still today nor is welcoming of you.

i look at jCarter and all the grief he's taken of late over his most recent "Peace Not Aparthied". Nobel Prize, heralded for his efforts now all of a sudden an anti-semite for calling present day situation/circumstances as he sees them. and yes i agree w/carter. what is it that in this nation today once you take a position you are wedded to it for life- we can no longer grow, evolve from our frames of reference and aquiried knowledge? do we really have that complete a picture of the jewish holocaust today. No, not any less-more than what we have of the Armenian. none of us were there. but we are to accept every pro-israel account as if carved in stone. while idlely standing by as the same occurs in Darfur. would you deny the american genocide based on what? american experience with slavery, based on what?

"A large number of Western students of Ottoman history reject the appropriateness of the genocide label for the tragic fate of the Armenian community in Ottoman Turkey. This list includes distinguished scholars such as Roderic Davison, J.C. Hurewitz, Bernard Lewis, and Andrew Mango. Ignoring this formidable array of learned opinion, most Armenians and their supporters among so-called genocide scholars assert with superb arrogance that the Armenian genocide is an incontrovertible historical fact, similar to the Jewish Holocaust, which would be denied only by lackeys of the Turkish government."

If there was a BS of the day award you would have won it. Questioning the validity of the Armenian Genocide is like debating Darwinisms. Sure some crazies somewhere still believe in Creationism, but that does not make the theory any less valid.

In regards to Armenian Genocide, one just needs to Google it to quickly understand how ridiculous the propaganda you are presenting here is. The question of this article is not whether or not the genocide happen, it's whether US will officially recognize it. Turks might want to debate the validity, the rest of the world has long progressed passed that.

Beginning in 1915, more than 1.5 million Armenians died when the Ottoman government forced the relocation of the population. President Bush has a reason not to call it genocide: That would anger the Turkish government

And rightly so, considering Mustafa Kemel for all intents and purposes overthrew the Ottomans.

Holding the current Turkish government responsible for the Armenian genocide would be like issuing a declaration holding the current German government responsible for the Holocaust.